Editor-DN
In his filmmaking career, Alex Garland has terrified us with zombies, infectious alien hybrids, murderous men and AI run amok. Civil WarThe writer-director’s latest film is not only his most ambitious entry, but also his most plausible.
Press note for Civil War Describe the setting as “near-future America,” but it feels like it could be yesterday.
This is not a struggle set in some distant land. This is happening in America. In the parking lot of a black JC Penny. On the streets of the capital, which are riddled with bullets and barricades.
Garland sets the tone early when we meet Kirsten Dunst as Lee, a war photographer covering the war at home.
With Nick Offerman in his third term as US president, the country has split into factions – the Florida Alliance joining forces with the Western Alliance (Texas and California) heading for the White House.
While the idea of blue-state Californians and red-state Texans working together may sound like science fiction, Civil War envisions a scenario where a president refuses to step down, presumably forcing states to work beyond their political differences.
look Civil War Official Trailer:
The unclear origins of the war
Beggars and eagle eyes can catch a map, just a reflection from a TV, that separates the states. The lack of clarity about the origins of the battle is a feature, not a bug.
Garland is less interested in some polyscience thought experiment than he is in exploring what war feels like, what it looks like. (Watch it on the biggest high screen you can find.)
It’s the haunting images – a UN aid camp in an abandoned stadium and the roar of helicopters hovering over the capital – that give this near-future scenario a sense of present tension.
Ask Garland how difficult it was to find these decadent scenes and he replies, “Not at all.” The abandoned football stadium and the graffiti are still there. They just put up tents.
Speaking with CBC News, Garland says “the West may look very rich … but the wealth is concentrated. There are really areas of extreme poverty in America.”
In the gap between the haves and the have-nots, polarization thrives. Civil War Explores what happens when the common fabric that unites a country is torn apart.
Road trip with journalists
Garland’s father was a political cartoonist and he grew up with journalists and foreign correspondents as close family friends. So for the director, journalism is an inoculation against creeping decay.
Not surprisingly then, what drives the story is Lee and the group of reporters she joins. Wagner Mora (who you may recognize from Narcos) is apparently excellent as gung-ho print journalist Joel.
He and Lee plan to travel to Washington to interview the president before the White House falls.
Civil War Rounding out the group are Kelly Spainy as Jessie, an aspiring photographer who paves her way to travel, and Stephen McKinley Henderson as Sammy, an aging writer who writes for the “New York Times What Bacha Hai” works for
look A clip from Civil War:
While the trope of saddled Lee with wide-eyed Jessie is familiar, the contrast between the two is indicative of how Dunst approaches her character.
I wonder if British filmmakers appreciate the power of watching Dunst grow up watching so many bright faces. Bring It On And spider manNow take the fatigue of this concrete world.
Dunst has the same stare you see on soldiers or first responders. When there is an explosion, she runs into the carnage. What does it do to a person? Dunst shows us.
This is not a party.
The fact is that Civil War Working primarily as a reporter-led road movie may surprise those expecting Roland Emmerich-style widescreen carnage. But what makes Civil War so powerful is that it’s the opposite—a visceral, intimate look, to quote the Talking Heads. Life during the war.
One of Garland’s most effective techniques is to contrast moments of beauty with bedlam.
After a long day on the road, the journalists camped around their vans and watched the bullet marks light up the night sky.
Garland dismembers Reverie with a hard cut, throwing us into a firefight, with Lee’s lens a few feet away from the soldiers firing.
Postmodern playlist
To add to the chaos, Civil War Adds a couple needle drops of choice.
Gone are the golden oldies. Apocalypse Now And Good morning Vietnam, are replaced by incongruous but undeniably funky hip-hop jams and secretive post-punk tunes. The sound injections emphasize the absurdity, the way the shell-shocked reporters try to pick apart what they’ve seen.
In the beginning, the four reporters fit neatly into the archetype. Lee, the world-weary doctor. Joel, the adrenaline junkie. Sammy, the cautious elder, and Jesse, the young hero-worshipper.
While there are moments that push the limits of believability (like Jessie bringing chemicals to develop her photos on the road), as the group approaches their goal, the reporters use the hard shell to protect themselves. They begin to break down and the distinctions disappear.
Alex Garland told CBC’s Eli Glassner how Jesse Plemons came to star in his new dystopian epic Civil War.
For much of the film Garland is navigating a tripwire, trying to make a film about war without glamorizing it.
Speaking with CBC News, Garland said, “The movie always wants to seduce. “It’s very powerful, so you avoid it.”
The result is not a film about war but its aftermath.
Civil War captures the sense of helplessness of the 21st century. War is not hell, it just is. The reasons, the cause, it’s all irrelevant – it’s just another thing to endure.
At one point the reporters encounter two soldiers in a shootout with a sniper. When Joel tries to figure out who they’re fighting, the weary soldier replies, “Someone’s trying to kill us. We’re trying to kill them.”
